Lane Kiffin Embarrasses Himself Again After Win Over Duke

The 2024-2025 College Football Bowl Season has been dominated by the SEC. Not on the field, so much, where SEC teams have lost high-profile games to USC, Michigan, Illinois, Notre Dame and Ohio State. But off the field, where the conference's fans have acted as if three-loss teams deserved to make the College Football Playoff over one loss teams from other major conferences.

Along with those wildly incorrect fans are some of the SEC's top coaches, including Lane Kiffin of Ole Miss. Kiffin was livid after the committee correctly decided that three-loss SEC teams did not deserve inclusion, then went mostly silent as his conference mates obliterated that perspective by getting dominated by Big Ten backups. 

Kiffin's team though, held up its end of the bargain, dominating a diminished Duke team missing star quarterback Maalik Murphy. It was a solid win, showcasing Ole Miss at its best. It also didn't change a single thing about whether or not Ole Miss deserved to be in the playoff. Something Kiffin and quarterback Jaxson Dart clearly didn't understand.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Head coach Lane Kiffin of the Mississippi Rebels reacts against the LSU Tigers during a game at Tiger Stadium on October 12, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

Kiffin, Dart Make Absurd Comments About Ole Miss After Win Over Duke

In the postgame press conference, Lane Kiffin and Jaxson Dart both said that the Rebels were out to make a statement with their game against Duke. Because Duke took playoff team SMU to overtime earlier in the season.

"That's a really good team. We played a team that won nine games and had one of the best defenses statistically in the country," Kiffin said. "I think they were best in negative plays in the ACC and very well coached. I know our guys talked a lot over the course of the month, especially last week of making a statement, feeling that they were left out of the playoffs."

Ole Miss was favored by at least 17 points. Because Duke was playing with a number of its best players in the transfer portal. It was a nice win, but hardly a statement on whether they deserved to be in the playoff. 

Not to mention that Ole Miss' case for inclusion only looks worse now than it did a few weeks ago, something Kiffin seems blissfully unaware of. Ole Miss had one win over a ranked team in the regular season. That team being Georgia, which was thoroughly dominated by Notre Dame. Albeit with their backup QB playing too.

Ole Miss lost to 4-8 Kentucky, which had one win in the SEC. A 6-6 USC Trojans team had two wins in the SEC, despite playing in the Big Ten Conference. Ole MIss simply did not deserve to be in the playoff this year, no matter how many "statements' they made as three possession favorites. Honestly, it's embarrassing the Rebels are even still acting like they did.